738 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 80 PART 5 SEPTEMBER 2022
He was a member of the editorial board of Carswell’s Real Property Reports
and a member of the editorial board of the Continuing Legal Education Society’s
British Columbia Company Law Practice Manual. He was an instructor
on many CLE courses.
He and his wife, Dawn, lived in West Vancouver. John was active in
municipal affairs. He was a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission
in 1973–79 and a director of the North and West Vancouver Hospital
Society in 1973–76.
Because of John’s well-known knowledge of company law, the Attorney
General of British Columbia appointed him to a committee whose terms of
reference were to recommend amendments to the B.C. Company Act. The
changes the committee recommended were duly implemented, and for this
service John was appointed Queen’s Counsel.
John was predeceased by his brother, Jimmy. Five years older than John,
he held a Master’s ticket and after years at sea, in the closing years of his
career, commanded ships in the BC Ferries’ fleet.
John could be said to have forged an ideal family. In 1957, he married
Dawn, who had grown up in Edinburgh. Dawn died in 2020, after 63 years
of happy married life with John. This union produced Diane, married to
John Burgoyne, a member of the B.C. bar; Ian, a family doctor practising in
Nanaimo; Peggy, who runs her own restaurant in Ladysmith; Brian, a stockbroker
in Ottawa; and seven grandchildren.
John and Dawn resided during their entire married life in the same
house in West Vancouver, gathering up a phenomenal collection of friends
there and on Salt Spring Island, where the family enjoyed their summer cottage.
John was a life member of the Vancouver Club and spent many a
lunchtime at the round table in discussion (and argument) with his
acquaintances there.
John had a rich sense of humour and was well known for his straightforward
approach to life, people and events. Nobody ever misunderstood what
John said. He was a strong character, and though he could occasionally be
wrong, he was never uncertain.
Those of us who knew him were saddened as his life was taken over by
dementia in the last few years, a decline that was triggered when a train
knocked him off the 32nd Street bridge as he was going for his morning run,
rendering him unconscious and stone deaf in one ear. The railway insisted
that he be prosecuted for trespass. He was convicted and fined one dollar.
As he proffered the loonie to the cashier, he asked her if it would be tax
deductible.
David Roberts, Q.C.